effectivelywildfandomcom-20200215-history
Episode 1477: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Tennis and Golf)
Date December 28, 2019 Summary In the third installment of a special, seven-episode series on the past, present, and future of advanced analysis in non-baseball sports, Ben Lindbergh talks to Tennis Abstract founder Jeff Sackmann about tennis and then Every Shot Counts author Mark Broadie about golf (39:17), touching on the origins of sabermetrics-style analysis in each sport, the major challenges, big breakthroughs, and overturned misconceptions, the early adopters, the cutting-edge stats and tech, the level of acceptance within the game, the effects on the spectator experience, the parallels with baseball, and more. Topics * Interview with Jeff Sackmann * How Jeff got interested in tennis * History and ease of analytics in tennis * Lack of interest from players * Jeff's match charting project * Measuring clutchness vs. seeing points as independent events * Lagging player rankings * Impact of playing surfaces * Comparing across eras * Tennis aging curves * Craig O'Shaughnessy * Data tracking in practice * Shot selection * Impact on fan experience * Limited player access to scouting reports * Decreased impact of serves * Interview with Mark Broadie * History and ease of analytics in golf * Strokes gained * How data has changed course strategy * Misconceptions about the importance of putting * Lengthening courses and technology changes * Increase in players attacking the hole * Difficulty of comparing across eras * Mark's work with Luke Donald * Swing tracking technology * Tiger Woods' dominance * Mark's work on clutchness Intro Simon Love, "Tennis Fan" Interstitial Caravan, "Golf Girl" Outro Cream, "Anyone for Tennis" Notes * Jeff says that like baseball, tennis is very structured. However the constant player motion makes analysis more difficult. * Jeff notes that tennis analytics is mostly a fan pursuit right now and thinks it is too early to talk about any major milestones. * There has been a convergence between playing surfaces and the competition calendar, preventing players from being able to be specialists on a certain surface like in the past. * Significant changes in racquet technology in addition to a lack of data make it exceptionally difficult to compare across eras in tennis. * Tournaments own the tracking data that is generated so it is difficult for both players and fans to have access to information. * Most top players will pay for scouting reports, however until recently many didn't do much advanced scouting. * Mark rates golf a 9/10 for ease of analysis. * Early golf analytics models and shot data began in the 1960s. The PGA did not begin to collect shot level data until 2003. While the results are public, the raw data remains private. * Mark's concept of strokes gained analyzes whether a specific shot is better or worse than average. The average is recalculated per-round to counteract the effects of weather and pin placement (hole location). * Mark's work has shown that approximately 2/3 of the advantage for a player comes from shots outside of 100 yards from the hole. This contradicts conventional wisdom that you "Drive for show and putt for dough", i.e., that the short game (putting and chipping) was the most important for lowering scores. * Mark also found evidence contradicting the conventional wisdom to calibrate your drive to reach an ideal approach shot distance. Instead, you should simply try to get as close to the green as possible. * Like tennis, the golf ranking system rewards past performance and is not necessarily meant to be a predictor of future results. * In the early 2000s Tiger Woods had a streak of 89 consecutive rounds where he beat the field average. The next longest streak is 34. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1477: Multisport Sabermetrics Exchange (Tennis and Golf) * Tennis Abstract * Tennis Abstract Blog * The Tennis Abstract Podcast * Hidden Game of Tennis * Jeff Sackmann's Hardball Times archive * Clutch, time pressure, injury prevention plans: How analytics could revolutionize tennis by Spenser Mestel * Tennis Is Growing Old With Federer, Nadal And The Williams Sisters by Carl Bialik * Advantage, Analytics: How Tennis Players Are Using Science to Elevate Their Artform by Joe Lemire * The Next Frontier in Tennis: There Are (Data) Points to Be Won Everywhere by Joe Lemire * Finally Understanding the Change of Direction, Tennis Catapults Into the Future With Embrace of Technology by Joe Lemire * Every Shot Counts by Mark Broadie * Why Tiger Woods' Consecutive Rounds Streak Might Be Better Than Joe DiMaggio's by Mark Broadie * Dr. Broadie Will See You Now * The Man With Two Brains: Strokes gained guru Mark Broadie's pioneering analytics have radically altered the game by Josh Sens * Crunch the numbers paying off so far for Ernie Els at Presidents Cup by Adam Schupak * By the numbers: Analytics become an increasingly important part of golf by David Dusek * Pixel Perfect: The PGA Tour's ShotLink Plus Cameras Capture the Nuances of Every Putt by Joe Lemire * The next great Strokes Gained statistic will calculate performance under pressure by Josh Berhow * Improving your golf game: How new tech tools can help sharpen swings and lower scores by Josh Kerns * The Great Distance Debate: How Ever-Increasing Driving Distance Is Changing Golf by Daniel Rapaport Category:Episodes Category:Guest Episodes